


The Dancing Flames

by phyripo



Series: We Were Here [5]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Legends, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-27 22:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13890183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phyripo/pseuds/phyripo
Summary: The musician drifts into the servant's life like a familiar melody, but the notes carry a secret that could be dangerous for both of them.





	The Dancing Flames

**Author's Note:**

> Estonia and music is just. An inseparable thing. So here he is!
> 
> Aaaand this one is inspired by [American Pie by Don McLean](https://youtu.be/y5ecvBaqHBk), which is maybe a weird choice for a story set in the middle ages but yeaH things happen :')  
> (Although actually I listened to [Zemeslodes by Instrumenti](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wPgfkEzAw4) on loop for like half the time I was writing this, and that's definitely a song I recommend even though it's not so suited to this story because it's Latvian and in fact what I imagine Latvia sounds like but yes)
> 
> FEATURING  
> Tolys - Lithuania  
> Eduard - Estonia  
> Raivis - Latvia

He was on the market when he heard it.

Lute playing, somewhere at the edge of the courtyard. A faint melody, unfamiliar yet nostalgic. Tolys stopped in his tracks and tilted his head to listen through the clamor of vendors, the rattling of wagon wheels and the sounds of animals.

More easily than he felt should have been possible, he could pinpoint it, and then he was powerless against the urge to find the source, the musician behind the tune.

Basket filled with food for his liege over his arm, Tolys worked his way through the teeming crowd of townsmen, farmers and servants of the court like him alike, and then there he was.

He looked like any other musician that had been to court, dressed in blues and greens and with feathers in his hat. Some children were at his feet, listening in silent rapture as he played. Tolys couldn’t blame them. He halted in the shadow of a stall selling dried meat to listen without being seen by the musician.

The music drifted gently, and the children sat more forward when the musician began to sing in a soft and pleasant voice. Although he wasn’t singing in a language Tolys understood, it was clear that he was telling a story.

When it ended, leaving Tolys feeling bereft and oddly sad and the children unusually quiet, the musician looked up from his small audience and his instrument. Tolys breathed in sharply when eyes the color of the sea found him, unerringly. He quickly slunk back and hurried to finish his round of the market, hoping he hadn’t wasted too much time dallying.

He found it impossible to tell.

 

 

Tolys would have liked to say that he forgot all about the mysterious musician, but in reality, he found it difficult to stop thinking about the encounter. Not when he was doing his work, of course, getting his liege food and armor and running down to the stables to check on his horse because he was convinced the actual stable boys wouldn’t take good care of her, but the thought of the mesmerizing music crossed his mind often when he tried to sleep at night, or when he waited by the castle kitchens in the morning.

The melody was still stuck in his head.

No one else seemed to have noticed the musician, though, and Tolys wasn’t supposed to talk to the only child who’d been there who lived in the castle, because the girl was high nobility, and he was just a servant. So he was left to wonder, for days.

And then there he was.

“My lords,” the steward was saying, “it pleases me to present to you a most celebrated musician from across the mountains. He is honored to play for the court tonight.”

The court in question applauded politely, and Tolys couldn’t see what was going on from the servants’ table, but he could hear everything. He could hear the first few gentle plucks at strings, the clearing of a throat, and then the strains of a lively melody accompanied by a familiar voice.

The musician. Tolys sat up straight on his bench to look, but the nobles were getting up, clapping enthusiastically and generally obscuring his view.

Again, he didn’t understand the language, but the song sparked something in seemingly not only him, because his fellow servants started talking animatedly, smiling and gesturing, but still the music was clear through everything.

It _had_ to be him. They did speak a different language across the mountains north of the peninsula, but Tolys was quite certain it wasn’t this one. He’d lived close to the mountains until he’d come to court to work there and had never heard any of the traders in his village speak this flowing tongue with each other. He should ask Raivis, who worked in the kitchens and whose family actually came from the other side of the mountains.

Looking over at the boy now, Tolys decided against it, because he looked genuinely happy for once and he didn’t want to disturb that. Perhaps, there would be a chance to speak to the musician himself.

The man played and played, undoubtedly telling a fantastic story in his beautiful language, and everyone was in a good mood when he eventually did stop and quietly slunk off. Even Raivis was humming the song under his breath, and Tolys smiled before getting up from the table and following the musician. He needed to know more about him, even if he wasn’t sure why.

The halls of the castle were empty but for a dog wandering through them, but there was music somewhere.

Tolys let it lead him to a small courtyard, and then there he was again.

The musician didn’t look up from his lute until the song was finished, but then the sea-green eyes were on Tolys. Like the sea, they were hard to read but soothing at the same time.

“You play beautifully,” Tolys told him. The man smiled.

“Thank you.” He put his instrument down on the bench next to himself. “Your lord has seen fit to offer me to play at the court this whole week.”

“He probably intends to keep you,” Tolys replied, and was surprised by the scathing tone in his own voice. That was something never to be displayed openly. The musician merely titled his head, squinting in his direction as if he were unclear.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I? I’m Tolys, I serve—”

“Yes, yes. Where are you from?”

“The north of the peninsula, a village. I’ve been here for five years.”

The musician nodded, picked his lute back up, and plucked some strings.

“Tolys. My name is Eduard.”

Tolys opened his mouth to ask something, although he wasn’t sure what that would be, but he closed it again when the separate tones from the lute resolved into a song he hadn’t heard in years. He sought support against the wall as Eduard played the melody of his childhood, the memory of his parents and the village he grew up in.

How did he know that song? It was specific to that one village, recounting the life of its founder. Had he visited? Had he guessed the place from Tolys’s speech, from his eyes?

The song was finished before Tolys could even start to put his thoughts in order, and he wished Eduard would stay, but the musician stood up and smiled at him.

“We’ll see each other again soon, I presume,” he said, and Tolys nodded, stepping aside to let him through and watching as he vanished into the shadows of the hall.

Very intriguing. He looked forward to the next time he’d hear him play.

 

 

As Eduard had said, he was back the next day. He played a soft song that moved people to tears and left Tolys breathless, but not enough to prevent him following the musician again, to that same courtyard.

This time, he sat quietly against a barrel to listen to a happier song, alternating closing his eyes and watching the sea green of Eduard’s. He seemed to be looking into a far distance Tolys couldn’t see, but that he could _hear_ all the same. There were words, muttered under his breath. Tolys wasn’t sure if he understood them.

“This song,” he said when the last note had died away, “is it about home?”

Eduard smiled. “Yes.”

“Whose?”

He put his lute down and leaned forward with his hands on his knees, seemingly studying Tolys. He was still wearing blue, rather than the red of the court they’d have undoubtedly offered him during his stay.

“I don’t think it matters whose home,” he eventually said, and Tolys blinked, having almost forgotten he asked a question at all. “Music has power, you see. I can make people yearn for places they’ve never even heard of.”

Tolys nodded silently.

“Do you miss your home, Tolys?”

“Often,” he admitted. “Less when you play.”

Eduard smiled again. “Then you understand. There’s power in music, and in memories.”

“Like magic?”

“Yes,” he said. “Much like magic.”

Maybe, Tolys reflected, as Eduard played a short song and walked away, not so much _like_ magic, but just _magic_. He felt as though that thought should scare him, but was certain Eduard did not have evil at heart or in mind.

Besides, he knew what the punishment for use of magic was, and had no desire to see the musician burn.

 

 

Although he did his best not to show it, Tolys felt nearly too exhausted for dinner the next day. His liege had worked him hard, ruthlessly, and his entire body ached. More than usual. It was lucky his duties didn’t extend into the evening, because he absolutely _needed_ to listen to Eduard again.

Somewhere, he wondered if perhaps he was being played as well, not only _like_ but _by_ the lute and its own particular magic, by Eduard’s long, talented fingers, his voice.

If he were, he decided, he’d take it, because it felt better than anything.

As Eduard entered the great hall of the castle, still standing out like a sore thumb in his shades of blue, the musician searched the room and caught Tolys’s gaze. His mouth turned down at one corner and his eyes sparked with something almost _dark_. Tolys swallowed heavily. He wasn’t afraid, but did feel a wary anticipation creeping up.

And then he played, and sang in yet a different language. This one sounded similar to the language of the court, so that Tolys understood most of the words.

The melody was happy, but Eduard told the story of a cruel lord who mistreated his servants and was cut into pieces by the end of the tale.

At the servants’ table, it was quiet until the nobles started cheering enthusiastically and moving along to the music, at which point the servants felt it was safe to do the same.

Eduard grinned a warm grin in Tolys’s direction, maybe even at him. Tolys smiled back, and of course followed the musician to the courtyard after dinner, not a doubt in his mind.

In the courtyard, he found that Eduard had strapped his lute to his back already, and he bit the inside of his cheek.

“Are you going somewhere?” he asked by way of a greeting.

“I am,” Eduard said, then tilted his head invitingly. “Come with me. You look very tired.”

“I am.” Tolys followed him, a little warily, through the cold, drafty halls of the castle, up the stairs to the guest wing. He didn’t come here often, not unless his liege wanted a message delivered to guests, and even then Tolys wasn’t the usual messenger.

“Where are we going?” he asked, checking around for gossipy servants or grumpy nobles.

“Here,” Eduard replied, and opened the door to one of the rooms. He gestured Tolys inside, and Tolys hesitated for a moment before stepping across the threshold. It wouldn’t do for anyone to catch him dawdling in the hall like this.

Once inside, Eduard gestured at the bed opposite the lit fireplace.

“You need to rest.”

“I—” Tolys looked at the bed, which had an actual mattress and a pillow, and a blanket that looked comfortable. “I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?” Eduard asked, putting his lute away and taking his hat off. The fireplace crackled pleasantly. It had been getting colder again; the first night frost would undoubtedly present itself shortly.

“I can’t because that is your bed, my lord.”

“Please, none of that. It’s a guest bed. If you are my guest, aren’t you the one more entitled to sleep in it?”

He shook his head, in amusement as well as denial.

“I’m just a servant.”

“I’m just a musician,” Eduard countered. Tolys bit his lip.

“Are you?”

Eduard didn’t answer, but he reached for Tolys’s shoulder and gently led him to the bed, pushing him down to sit on the edge of it. It was so soft.

“You’re a peculiar man, Tolys.”

He laughed nervously. “Me? I’m a very normal man, honest.”

“I think you’d be surprised,” Eduard replied. “Now sleep. I’ll wake you if need be.”

Tolys wanted to protest more, because if his liege found out, losing his position at the court was the best possible scenario. However, Eduard began to hum a melody, a wordless lullaby, and he couldn’t help but give in to his exhaustion.

 

 

He woke to weak sunlight and an empty room.

There was some food and a piece of parchment on a table. On the parchment was drawn in charcoal a crude drawing of a figure eating. Tolys laughed. Eduard had assumed he couldn’t read. Of course.

To be fair, most servants couldn’t. Tolys was lucky, and he shook his head when he realized the other side of the parchment was an official contract about Eduard’s stay at the court. Only someone with riches would do something like this.

Eduard didn’t seem like one who did, at least not in a material sense. He obviously had a wealth of talent and some sort of charm that made Tolys trust him so implicitly.

The musician’s name was signed in letters that flowed like music. Tolys looked at it for a while, then sighed, ate some of the bread and an apple, and left to do his duties.

 

 

Eduard and his music were back again in the evening, this time with a warning song to a haunting melody that left the nobility shifting in their seats, but Raivis sat back down at the servants’ table with a confused sort of smile on his face and told Tolys that his lord just _thanked_ him for his work. He’d never done that before.

“What was that song?” Tolys asked Eduard, later in the courtyard. He clasped his hands behind his back and watched the musician shift on his bench, lute on his lap.

“It was just a song,” the man answered. He fingered the strings, and Tolys resisted the overwhelming urge to drop the issue.

“It wasn’t, I think. Yesterday, you said there is power in music, and I have always believed that to be true, but never in such a…” He bit his cheek. “In such a literal way.”

Eduard looked up at him, and then down at him when he stood up, unfolding his long limbs.

“You’re right,” he said. “Come, I’ll show you something.”

“What?” Tolys asked, and the musician smiled.

“I promise you will like it.”

Apparently, Tolys couldn’t resist listening to Eduard even when there was no music to persuade him.

They went out, this time, leaving the castle through an exit by the kitchens – still busy, but they went unnoticed – and walking through the dusky town surrounding the high walls. Before long, they reached the edge of the forest that spanned much of the peninsula. Far in the distance, Tolys imagined he could hear the crashing of waves against the cliffs on the shore.

“I think this will do,” Eduard said. His hair was nearly white in the light of the nearly full moon, his eyes translucent. He looked how Tolys always imagined the fair folk from the legends would, and that made him take the smallest step back, because that was what they did, wasn’t it? Lure people away?

Eduard sat down on a stone, not noticing.

“There’s always power in music, no matter who makes it,” he was saying. “But, I… You’re one of a few who have noticed me so immediately. Noticed what was going on. So I think that maybe, you should know.”

“Should know what?” Tolys asked breathlessly, stepping closer again despite himself, kneeling on the mossy ground at Eduard’s feet as if he were a child. It was quite cold.

“Can I show you?”

They held each other’s gaze until Tolys nodded.

“Thank you,” Eduard said, then took a deep breath and began playing a light melody. It tinkled and leaped like a mountain brook in summer. A faint smile appeared on his face after a while, and he looked up and around, urging Tolys to do the same with a glance of those sea-green eyes.

He did, and gasped.

Flowers had sprung up among the cold moss as if it were spring instead of late autumn, bathing the edge of the forest in color, hues of blues and pinks and yellows. It was mesmerizing. Tolys looked back up at Eduard, who squinted at him again, so he scooted a little closer.

“ _How_?” he asked. “How is this possible?”

The musician opened his mouth, frowned, and closed it again, seemingly lost for words even as he played on.

“Is it you or is it the lute?” Tolys asked.

“It’s… Mostly me,” he replied. “The lute helps. My mother made it. She could do what I do, too.”

 _Do what he does_. It was amazing, how even nature would bend to his will, if only because Tolys was certain he was on Eduard’s good side.

“Eduard,” he said, “do you know what punishment awaits those who use magic here?”

He smiled. “It’s just music, Tolys.”

“I don’t think so. If I sang a song like the one you played at dinner, they would have me _hanged_ , magic or no.”

“As far as anyone knows, it’s just music,” Eduard amended. And then, tilting his head, “Do you sing?”

“I… Used to, often. Not so much since I came here.”

The musician shifted, and so did the music, again to the song about Tolys’s village.

“Sing for me?” Eduard asked. There was no magic of persuasion behind it, Tolys was certain. “This is your language. The song of your home.”

Tolys swallowed. It was, but it made him nervous. Eduard played on, his fingers quick and skilled on the strings and his gaze on Tolys, at once soft and deep. Was this a test?

If it was, Tolys wouldn’t know what he was being tested for.

He started to hum, letting the words come back to him after so many years, and then let them out, singing under his breath at first, but louder when Eduard smiled brilliantly, eyes lighting up in the pale light. In the distance, the castle shone like a beacon, but the world around him and the musician was still and silent except for the music. The flowers moved in wind not felt.

When the song ended, they were both quiet for a long while, Tolys lost in memories and Eduard looking into the forest.

“Thank you, Tolys. You sing beautifully,” he said, eventually. “Perhaps we should head back. I don’t doubt you have much work in the morning.”

Tolys nodded, and they both stood wordlessly, brushing off their tunics and starting to walk back, through the narrow streets of the town to the castle. The silence was comfortable, full of the memory of music.

“Tolys?” Eduard asked when they had reached the hallway where their paths split.

“Yes?”

“What duties do you have tomorrow?”

He summed up, “I bring my liege breakfast, help clean his rooms when he goes hunting in the morning and I need to visit the smithy in the afternoon, and there are smaller things that always present themselves besides.”

With a smile and the lightest of touches to his shoulder, Eduard told him he might see him in town tomorrow, and before Tolys could reply to that, the musician had slunk off in that way of his, without a sound.

He used his left hand dominantly, Tolys realized, blinking into the shadows. People would think something of that. He didn’t believe in any of that talk, because he could use both hands equally well, but perhaps he should warn Eduard of the court’s superstitions regarding that. Anything that would cause the slightest amount of suspicion towards him was a bad thing. Tolys liked him alive.

Tolys liked him a lot.

 

 

And indeed, there he was on the market, luteless for once but smiling at Tolys from where he was leaning against a wall of the castle idly. Tolys shook his hair out of his face and smiled back, feeling his face heat for some reason and hoping it didn’t show. This wasn’t one of those illicit affairs the other servants sometimes had, with each other or townspeople or even nobility. This was just… A musician with a magical voice and a servant. Spending time together for no particular reason.

“Isn’t that that musician who’s been playing for the nobles?” Raivis asked. Tolys had met the boy on his way back from the smithy, and they had stuck together. He felt a little protective towards him.

“Yes,” he replied, trying to pull his face back into neutrality by biting his lip.

“He is very good,” Raivis said. “Maybe we should tell him, or do you think he wouldn’t appreciate that?”

“I’m sure he would,” Tolys said faintly, because Eduard was already walking over to them. Raivis visibly tightened his grip on his basket. Absently, Tolys patted the boy’s shoulder.

“Good afternoon,” Eduard greeted, nodding at Tolys and smiling at Raivis. “I don’t believe we have met.”

Raivis bowed his head and stuttered, “My name is Raivis, my lord. If I could just say, you play beautifully.”

Blinking, he replied, “Thank you, Raivis. Please call me Eduard.”

Tolys shook his head while Raivis stuttered some more. It would just confuse him. He worried about Raivis often, honestly. He was obviously a smart boy, but working in the castle didn’t do him any good. Tolys hated that he couldn’t do anything about it.

Then again… He watched Eduard’s light eyes flash with determination, and had the feeling the nobility was in for another warning tonight, or more yet. Who knew what that music could set into motion?

Eventually, Raivis trembled out of the way, and Eduard looked after him almost sadly.

“Is he always like that?” he asked Tolys.

“I fear so, yes.” He shook his head again. “He shouldn’t be here.”

Eduard nodded, but then turned his full attention to Tolys, smiling.

“It’s nice to see you in the daylight, Tolys.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but closed his mouth again before he could, gaze skittering away.

“Likewise,” Tolys just replied. “Is there anything I can do for you? Have you seen the town?”

“Not with you,” Eduard replied, then opened and closed his mouth a few times again, and eventually bit his lip. It was endearing how out of his element he was without the lute, but Tolys decided he was happy to help him be more comfortable, so he smiled and told him he’d give him a tour.

They rounded the marketplace and walked down to the docks, where the air smelled like salt and fish and people were shouting in multiple languages at each other. The city was an important trading post, attracting not only people from all over the peninsula but also from farther away.

“Such as you, of course,” Tolys said to Eduard. “Have you been to many places before?”

“Yes, all across your peninsula,” he replied. “People’s love for music is more important than borders.”

Tolys raised his eyebrows at him, trying to convey skepticism, and the musician laughed.

“Yes, and I have effective methods of persuading them, I will admit that.” He sighed. “I’ve never talked about it with anyone, about what I do. Even in places where magic isn’t a crime, I don’t know how I would be looked upon if people were aware.”

Now walking back into the pungent alleys of the city, where Tolys had lived for a short while before joining the ranks of the servants and being assigned a room in the bowels of the castle alongside them, they encountered fewer and fewer people. They followed the slight slope up to the top of a small hill and looked out over the sea in the distance, the mouth of the river below even while the houses pressed in on them from both sides. The wind, at least, was fresh.

“I like you.” Tolys felt he needed to make it clear. “And I think that what you do, is…”

Eduard looked at him, stopping in his tracks, and he was lost for words. Magical? Of course it was. Mesmerizing? Amazing? That didn’t even cover half of it.

“I’m just a musician,” Eduard said under his breath. As if he were the one awed.

“You’re—”

“No, listen. You’ve worked, you’ve worked hard to get where you are. I just sing, and people do what I want them to, and it’s almost always been that way. I’m just a musician, but you, Tolys, you are…”

“I’m a servant,” he supplied, breathlessly caught in the man’s gaze.

“I think you’re a good man. Better than I am.”

Tolys grimaced. “Being good doesn’t get you much of anywhere.”

“Maybe it gets you where you need to be.” He put a hand on Tolys’s shoulder, sliding it to hold his neck, running a thumb across his jaw. Tolys lowered his gaze to the leather straps of the musician’s shoes, wound around his calves. Eduard was warm, but Tolys felt warmer yet, skin prickling.

He blinked when Eduard shuffled closer, looking back up at him and his beautiful eyes filling his vision. There was a twitch at the corner of the man’s mouth that Tolys’s gaze lingered on, fascinated.

“Listen,” Eduard said, “I’ll do what I can for Raivis.”

“Thank you. I worry about him, you know.”

He smiled. “You are a good man.”

He brought his other hand up to Tolys’s face as well, his right one, and, oh, that’s right, he needed to know – Tolys’s breath caught when he leaned into his space and touched their foreheads together, separated only by a thin layer of fair hair. The rim of Eduard’s hat pushed into Tolys’s hair, the feathers brushing the top of his head. His own hands flew up reflexively, fingers catching on the fastening of Eduard’s cloak when he rested them against his chest.

They stayed still for a short moment that seemed to last ages, there in the shadows of the rickety buildings.

“I think you aren’t so bad yourself,” Tolys eventually said into the scarce air between their faces. Eduard chuckled warmly, finally straightening. Tolys’s fingers slipped away from his chest.

“Thank you. Will I see you tonight?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Good. You… You better go, then, before your liege lord decides to keep you.”

He had a good point there, so Tolys nodded regretfully and sped to the castle, trying not to grin. They’d start thinking it _was_ one of those illicit affairs.

Maybe it was.

 

 

That evening’s song was again in a language Tolys didn’t understand, but he remembered how his liege had not been angry when he returned quite late this afternoon and how Raivis was trembling less than ever before, and thought it probably didn’t matter much what the words actually were. It was the thought behind the music.

How could it be that no one but him seemed to notice the connection?

He asked Eduard, who shook his head.

“I don’t know. Anyone _can_ notice, but there is often someone like you in any group of people I play for.”

Tolys breathed in sharply, and the musician looked at him with one eye.

“They don’t seek me out most of the time, and they’re often children besides. It’s never been like this before.”

“Like…” He tried to pronounce it as a question.

“Like…” Eduard drummed his long fingers on his lute. With everything he did, it was easy to forget that he was merely human too. “Like we could be… Something. If you feel that too, at least.”

Swallowing heavily, Tolys nodded. He was more than just intrigued by Eduard. Had dreamed not only of his voice but also of his eyes last night.

“I do, Eduard.”

The musician’s face lit up with a smile, breath coming out in a rush. It was a risk he’d taken by making that confession; although there weren’t any laws against _two men_ , it was not something people always looked kindly upon, certainly not as one’s main relationship.

Then again, perhaps Eduard could have commanded him to forget through a mere song, if he’d have been one of those people.

He listened to Eduard play in his rooms that night, talked about everything and nothing with him, and sang softly at his request until the musician kissed him silent, seeming as surprised by the move as Tolys felt but smiling at it.

They fell asleep when the fire in the hearth was no more than glowing embers.

 

 

The room wasn’t empty this time when Tolys woke.

Eduard was flitting around in it, humming under his breath. He seemed to be in a good mood, smiling broadly at Tolys when he noticed he’d woken. Tolys smiled back.

They broke their fast together, and then Tolys hurried off to his work with a kiss goodbye. Raivis commented that he seemed happy.

“I am,” he said. “It’s been a good week.”

“It has, hasn’t it?” Raivis asked. “Where were you tonight? Is that why you’re so happy?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “I’ll tell you sometime.”

The boy actually smiled while nodding. Whatever Eduard had done to help him was working well. Tolys hoped he would stay around for a while after this week – after tomorrow, his seventh day playing for the court. Surely, the nobility wouldn’t mind. They seemed to be enjoying his music.

Of course they were.

That evening’s song was a happy tale about a knight and his deeds, which some of the servants as well as the nobles seemed to know, the ones more from the south of the peninsula. Tolys’s liege clapped along enthusiastically. It was almost endearing.

Afterwards, Tolys caught up with Eduard in the hallway to _their_ courtyard – his route to it was faster, it seemed.

The musician smiled, and Tolys glanced around before kissing him, because it was hard to stop now.

“What was that song for?” he asked curiously.

“Sometimes, a song is just a song, even with me.”

“Really?”

He inclined his head. “It made people happy. That is the best part of what I do. Always has been.”

“I understand.” Tolys nodded. “Can I ask you something?”

“A favor?” Eduard asked, a crease appearing between his eyebrows.

“Not really. It’s a question. Something I wonder about.”

“Oh, yes. Of course, go ahead.” He sounded relieved.

“If the lute helps you… Do what you do, as you said, does that mean it might also help someone else?”

The musician drummed his fingers on the instrument in question, clasped under his right arm.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Why? Do you want to try?”

“No, I… I was thinking about Raivis. Of course, I wouldn’t ask you to give up your lute, but if you could teach him – something. Anything. Just music would be enough, I know he’s got talent. He’s young yet; he doesn’t have to live his life being unhappy here.”

“Neither do you, you know,” Eduard said softly. “You could come with me when I leave. Both of you, even.”

“I— We—” Tolys hadn’t even thought about the possibility. He didn’t have a bad life here at all, and everything was _uncertain_ out there. Less so with the powers Eduard possessed, of course, but all the same…

“Think about it, if you want to. Talk to Raivis. You don’t have to tell him about the—” He made a vague gesture with his free hand, which made Tolys chuckle.

“I will, I will think about it,” he promised.

“Good,” Eduard said. He sighed, then smiled. “Good. Come.”

They went.

 

 

“Tolys,” Raivis was nearly whispering, “I don’t understand. Why would he want us to leave with him?”

Tolys floundered a bit, unsure how to explain anything, until understanding dawned rapidly on the boy’s face.

“You were with him those nights!”

“I…” He sighed. “Yes, I was, and Eduard knows I care about you. He’d want to teach you about music.”

“Really? But I’d never be as good as he is, certainly.”

“I don’t think anyone could be. But I know you have talent.”

Raivis shuffled his feet into the straw on the floor of the hallway, his head flopping from side to side.

“Isn’t today the last day he’ll play for the court? Eduard?”

Tolys nodded, biting the inside of his cheek.

“And he’s leaving tomorrow?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. We haven’t talked about that.”

Raivis smiled innocently. “Have you talked much at all?”

“Raivis!”

His smile widened to a grin, the likes of which Tolys had never seen on his pale face. Even if he was joking at his expense, it was good to see. Tolys shook his head fondly and told him to think about it and to tell him during dinner.

When the dinner in fact came, it seemed as though Eduard had saved his best for last. He swept the entire hall up in a wave of emotion with barely any help from his lute, just his voice carrying clearly across the large space, echoing off the walls and bringing color to the tapestries.

“Tolys,” Raivis whispered.

“Hm?” He didn’t take his eyes off Eduard. Couldn’t.

“ _Yes_ ,” he said. Tolys smiled. Yes.

He tugged Raivis with him to follow when Eduard left the hall and went to the courtyard, where the musician smiled at both of them, and laughed breathlessly when Tolys kissed him, hard. Raivis was studiously looking down at the lute when he glanced over at him, clearing his throat.

“Well,” he said, “Raivis would like to come. Isn’t it?”

The boy nodded.

“Good,” Eduard said. And, looking at Tolys as he furrowed his brow, he whispered, “Is he aware of… _Me_?”

Tolys shook his head.

“Do you think… How do you think he’d react?”

“I think favorably. Have I told you his family is from across the mountains?”

Eduard smiled. “You haven’t. But that’s great.”

He turned to Raivis, who had now awkwardly clenched his thin fingers in the edge of his tunic and was shuffling his foot.

“Sorry,” Eduard said. “There is something you should know. Something I need to show you.”

“Oh?” He blinked. “Of course.”

The musician looked around the courtyard, which was mostly empty, pursed his lips, and gestured them both into the hallway and through it into another room. It was the council room, Tolys thought; there was a tapestry on the wall depicting many knights led by a previous lord. Eduard looked up at it, muttered some words as if trying to find the right ones, put his lute down against the heavy table dominating the space, and began to sing.

Raivis shot Tolys a confused look, but Tolys just shook his head and motioned for him to watch Eduard. He did, too, until his eye was drawn by movement.

The tapestry had come to life. The knights were stampeding across the fabric, soundlessly but with shining armor and leaving behind clouds of dust.

“Oh,” Raivis said, staring openmouthed. He sank down to his knees as if his legs wouldn’t hold him, next to Eduard’s lute, as the song ended. “That is _magic_.”

Eduard nodded.

“Do it again?” Raivis asked, and the musician smiled, and did. The knights, who had returned to their original positions, began to fight an incoming enemy this time; the words to the song were different, but the heavy melody was the same. It was almost as if he could hear the horses running, the armor clanging.

The armor clanging.

The _bang_ as the door to the chamber was slammed open unceremoniously, cutting off the song.

 _No_.

Raivis scrambled underneath the table with Eduard’s lute as Tolys’s liege lord and some of the knights spilled into the room, backing Tolys and Eduard up against the still tapestry.

“ _What_ is this?” his liege boomed, his eyes harder than ever before – and they often were. He was known as a ruthless man, and had earned that reputation.

“My liege, the musician was singing—”

“I _heard_. I _saw_ , however, that he was performing magic.” His voice was now dangerously low. “Don’t imagine I haven’t noticed you running off evening after evening, Tolys. Don’t imagine I do not know what is going on between the walls of my home. Do not imagine that I will _tolerate this_.”

Eduard was breathing rapidly next to Tolys, but then he started singing, wordlessly pouring emotion into the room. Tolys’s liege blinked, opened and closed his mouth a few times.

Then, he shook his head, snarled, and slammed the musician into the tapestry behind him with one hand, knocking the breath out of him.

“Don’t play tricks on me!” he spat. Eduard turned his face away.

“Leave him alone!” Tolys shouted, rushing forward, but he was yanked back by one of the knights and held in a painful armored grip. He met Eduard’s eyes, and saw his own desperation reflected in them. There was nothing either of them could do. All Tolys could do was hope they’d be mild, although he knew that was feeble, and that they’d leave Raivis alone. No one had spotted him yet, it seemed.

“I assume,” Tolys’s liege was saying, “you are aware of the punishment we bestow on those who commit such foul atrocities here?”

“I am,” Eduard said, squaring his jaw, eyes not leaving Tolys’s.

“Don’t,” Tolys pleaded in turn, and his liege whirled on him, still holding Eduard up against the tapestry.

“You, I _know_ , are aware of the punishment for treason.”

He was. Gods, he was.

“Put them in the dungeons. They’ll burn tomorrow.”

 

 

It was a long, cold night in the musty dungeons, and although Tolys and Eduard were put in the same cell, could hold each other, it provided little warmth.

“I’m so sorry,” Tolys told him, the words muffled against his shoulder.

“Don’t be. It has always been inevitable,” Eduard whispered into his hair. “It is what happened to my mother as well.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

“So am I.”

Even Eduard’s soft singing could not open the door, and the morning dawned unfairly sunny and with cheers coming from the courtyard as they were led outside.

Each step felt like climbing a mountain; Tolys wasn’t honestly sure his legs would carry him any further when he saw the pyre. He didn’t hear anything as his liege read out the sentence, as if there had been any sort of trial, as he was roughly tugged up, his hands tied around a post. He could feel Eduard on the other side. Their fingers touched.

He didn’t hear anything when the torch came down to the wood and the flames started licking at it, but he felt Eduard, and he saw Raivis, among the crowd in travelling clothes and with the musician’s lute strapped to his back, before the smoke blinded him.

“Go,” he told the boy.

“Is it Raivis?” Eduard asked . It was the only thing he heard.

“Yes.”

The musician turned his hand over in its binds and entwined their fingers. Tolys closed his eyes.

Eduard started singing.

The flames danced ever higher, and Eduard sang on. Tolys listened, and did not feel – not the fire, not the smoke in his nose, not any pain. He just listened.

He’d listen forever, because he knew Eduard would keep singing.

Everything would listen.

**Author's Note:**

> _A long long time ago_   
>  _I can still remember how_   
>  _That music used to make me smile_   
>  _And I knew if I had my chance_   
>  _That I could make those people dance_   
>  _And maybe they'd be happy for a while_


End file.
